Road Less Traveled in Geneva: October 2012


Chocolate Version of the Flower Clock

This past weekend, my friend Michelle and I went to a Chocolatier Exhibition in Geneva. There was about twenty-five chocolatiers from around Switzerland and some parts of France. Each chocolatier had a booth with their products, and the best part...samples! Michelle and I had to pace ourselves so we would not go overboard. My favorite chocolatier was Poyet, which is located in Vevey, Switzerland. I enjoyed how they had really different flavors and descriptions of each chocolate. My two favorite chocolates from them were one called Mumbai, which had the flavors of Indian masala tea and mango jelly; the other was called Kundun and it had an infusion of lotus flower and Himalaya salt. From another chocolatier, Honald from Zurich, I had a margarita chocolate that was strong, but interesting. There were also macaroons, but our focus was the chocolate of course!

The crowds of people trying to get their chocolate fix on

Chocolate machine...yum!

Chocolate sculptures, do not touch!


Spurkees Bank Tower, Luxembourg

     I had the opportunity to travel to another part of Europe with my two friends Michelle and Justin last week. In our four day trip we traveled to the country of Belgium and Luxembourg. For each day of travel we were in a different city, or in the case of Luxembourg, a different country. In Belgium, we were in the cities of Brugge, Ghent, and Bruxelles. In Luxembourg, we traveled to Luxembourg city.
     Our journey began very early on Saturday morning where we flew from Geneva to Bruxelles. Once we were in Bruxelles, we took a train to Brugge, and before departing we ate waffles! Once we were in Brugge we ventured to find our hotel in the rain. After that mission was accomplished, we headed back into the city center and the new mission of finding chocolate commenced. There were so many chocolate shops it was hard to chose so we tried a couple of different ones. After too much chocolate, we thought real food would be a good idea and so Michelle and I tried to each finish a big pot of mussles and shared a beer. We then proceeded to climb up the Belfry tower of Bruge, or Belfort all 366 steps to get a magnificent view of the city.The next day in Brugge, we went on a boat tour, sadly it rained while we were on boat in the canals.
     The three of us then ventured by train to Ghent. We toured around Graversteen castle, which was located near our hostel. We had a nice dinner by the water and then saw one of the orginal city gates. The next day we arose early and took a train to Bruxelles and then another train to Luxembourg, which took almost 4 hours. Luxembourg is a very beautiful city with different levels of landscape. We took a tour around the city on a tourbus and then walked around to admire the architecture and the landscape. Our dinner was passed at a lovely French restaurant, where the waitress spoke 7 different languages. She was learning her 8th one: Luxembourgish.
   Four our final day of the trip, we returned to Bruxelles. We toured around the Grand Place and found Manneken Pis. He is the famous small boy statue that pees into the water basin. There are a lot of legends that surround the statue, but the more interesting tradition is how he changes costumes a few times each week and he has over 700 outfits housed in the city musuem. We then stocked up on chocolate and ate waffles and fries before heading toward the airport. Sadly, we missed our flight, but caught a later one and returned safely to Geneva.